That website is too funny. I love how they have categories for 'Awesome Stuff' and 'Weird Things', but the stuff is exactly the same!

Sasha, my MIL has even given us doilies and I said to my husband "what exactly are we suppose to do with these?" She also gave us tacky plates to hang on the wall. Luckily she never comes here in person to see that these TREASURES are not on display.

One of my M.E. friends bought a pedometer to measure her walking distance over the day. It was a tiny thing that clipped on her belt. She said you clock up a great distance doing little chores, even just round the house, and you don't realise you do a lot more some days than others. I suppose over time you could train yourself to regularise, to avoid overdoing it without realising.

A milk Tray room divider...?? What a shame I missed that!!!! It reminds me of a scary TV programme in Italy where a woman shows you how to fill your house with rubbish. One time I saw it, she made a large lampshade out of old biro pens. Another time she made a doormat by laboriously wiring together about 500 plastic bottle tops. And the worst of all time was a "bookcase" made of those rough wooden crates that greengrocers get their fruit in. You'd get splinters under your nails just from looking at it. People watch the show simpy to marvel at the jaw-droppingly awful stuff she comes up with.

By the way I still have a pattern book of lace doilies from the 1970s, that my grandmother gave me. I think it's time to get crotcheting...

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Ooh, pedometer - that's a good idea. I've got one but it has died. I'll get another.

That TV show sounds amazing. That doormat sounds as though that way, madness lies. Am quite taken with the idea of the biro lampshade, though!

Doily pattern books! I think my grandma used to have them. Ahh, the seventies! Ahh, doilies!

My birdsong clock arrived yesterday and I've been trying it out. I love it! The birdsongs are really good! I thought they might consist of awful electronic squawking but actually there are some really lovely ones and they are realistic - I'm particularly fond of two o'clock, whatever that is (not big on ornithology). One bird is a bit weird - they're supposed to be British birds but I can't imagine where that one hangs out - sounds like somebody stepping on a bag of peanuts - but mostly, they're beautiful. So rare that something off the internet exceeds expectations! It's certainly helping me pace (speaking of which, something just warbled so I must go and lie down!).

Having heard the weird bird again this morning, I realise I misremembered its weirdness - it doesn't sound like peanuts crunching, it sounds like that bird that you can hear in the background in that Arnold Schwarznegger movie "Predator" which, as far as I'm aware, was filmed in the South American jungle, not Surrey. It sounds like rattling. Was too lazy to fish the clock out of its hiding place to look at what it was (but now I'm curious!).